I tried hard to have a father but instead I had a dad

My dad says he doesn’t believe in being a stern father and he makes a point of talking to me as a friend and an even bigger point of telling everybody he talks to me as a friend. Wants to be my brother, but my big brother who can still eclipse me and be the better man for it. Or fade me out like he is the sun and I’m a shadow that doesn’t stand a chance. He’s like that. Likes to think he’s so badass he’s everybody’s daddy. Lazy bitch. He called me that once. We’re as old as we feel he says and he is feeling my age. Buck called me Japhet in search of a father, looking for atonement. Iapetos more like. The Greek version of Japhet fits the bill a bit better I’d say. Iapetos the god of the mortal life span, who with his brothers the other Time gods turned their father into a bitch. Their mother Gaia, the earth, started it. She wanted a divorce. An old school divorce. Their father Uranus was an asshole of mythic proportions. He would hide the brothers in the earth once they were born just to keep them down. You can be a man, sure, but not as good a one as me. Mama Gaia got sick of this, as you can imagine, and made a plan. Then she gave Kronos a sickle. Now Kronos is the god of all-devouring Time so Mama’s plan fed right into his destructive side and he hopped on board fast as lightning. The rest of us needed little persuasion. Krios, my brother who runs the measurement of the year felt ripe for it, and Hyperion with his days and months always wanted to be a part of whatever Krios did, so he came along too. It took just a little longer for Koios to come around. He is the god of the axis of heaven and even though he said he saw it coming he couldn’t decide what was in it for him. Sheesh, you’d think the world revolves around him. He’s the one married to Omphalos, that blowhard, you know her? She’s full of hot air. Anyway, the only one of us who didn’t want to get one up on the old man was Okeanos, but he’s just in charge of moving of the planets and he does a piss poor job of it too apparently, with them going backwards whenever they want. What does he know about Time? So here’s what we did. We knew Uranus was on his way to sleep with our mother (the less I describe about that the better, don’t want this thing to start sounding like a Greek tragedy) and just as he was spreading himself all over the top of her, Krios, Koios, and Hyperion each grabbed a corner of daddy dearest and I grabbed the fourth. Then Kronos, who had hidden himself somewhere near the omphalos, jumped up fast and cut his dick right off. Just like that. One slice. Balls too. He howled so much you can still hear it now. Listen, hear that? Blood splashed all over the place like Carrie at the prom and a whole lot of shit happened after that, but that’s another story. The upshot is there was no atonement; it was an ambush plain and simple and now dad sings soprano. And Kronos still likes carrying that sickle around. He’s working as a travel agent these days. Wait. Hold on. Who is telling this story?